Sziget Festival Ends

After two years of forced hiatus, the relaunched Sziget Festival was met with great interest, according to a statement by the organizers. The event closed with a total of 452,000 visitors.

The festival started last Wednesday with a full house, and on Friday and Saturday, it was close to being full. Chief organizer Tamás Kádár said the absence of the event really showed its value, importance and relevance – that Sziget and the values it represents are needed every day of the year.

“The past two years have left a serious mark on all of us, but we did not simply want to get back to our old lives, but, enriched, if you like, strengthened by the experiences and feelings of the past period, we tried to make room for new thoughts, creations and experiences. And to our great joy, and to the satisfaction of the hundreds of thousands of ‘Sziget family’, we were together part of a renewal that could be completed in the diverse freedom of Sziget", Kádár said in the statement. He added that "the system of entry and exit was an excellent test, both in order to reduce the strain on the outside of the K-bridge and to make it easier to get in and out of the concerts that attract the biggest crowds.”

As far as the number of visitors is concerned, Tamás Kádár said that the big success was not necessarily the fact that there was one sold-out day and two close to it, but that the number of visitors was evenly spread over the six days. This means that it is not the concerts that attract people to the island, but the festival itself, he stated.